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“What Would You Do?”-Critical Blog Assignment

The plan is to create brand awareness among college students and increase walk-in business at the local stores in college towns. We want to promote and advertise the coffee houses to college students on campuses and in the local stores and increase sales. Our proposal is that we pass out flyers on the local college campuses offering discounts to students who solicit coffee at the Sunshine Cafe locations. To generate some significant talk, hosting a one-time event selling any size or any type of coffee for $2 could generate a lot of profit and get people talking about the business. Lastly, the creating of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to give consumers a visual representation of what they are planning to consume will get people interested in the cafe and also use the social media sites to promote any seasonal offers.

Our first order of business is to start trying to set up deals with college campuses to offer their students discounts as soon as possible. Also, start taking photos and talking about the coffee shop on social media. Many people will see the visual representation being put forth and will want to solicit the product to see if it’s worth the fuss. In regards to the event, early November seems like a great time to host it, due to the weather being cold and fall ringing in strong. Advertisements of the event should be passed out sometime in mid-October to give people enough time to gain interest and start to save the date.

Due to the fact that there is no budget in place, out-of-pocket expenses will be used to buy advertisements and buy products for the event. However, if the event is a success the out-of-pocket expenses should be generated back in no time along with some profit as well.

Before the event takes place start to take note of the amount of advertisements going out and also take note of how many college students are taking advantage of the student discount, or of the promotion of the business in general. Hosting a quick meeting with employees every week up until the day of the event to talk about how the business is generating talk in the social media world and in general, will give everyone an idea of what to expect before the big day.

Friends talking in cafe

After the event takes place, take some time to sit down with your employees and talk about what went well and what could have been improved. Ask the questions: Was the out-of-pocket expenses made back and was there a profit? How many people showed up to the event? Did the social media account hit a big break with many talking about their experience? Was the event so successful that another event could be underway? And lastly identify and try to resolve any negative reviews or specific complaints. But, overall was it a great and rewarding experience?

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One thought on ““What Would You Do?”-Critical Blog Assignment”

Nice post Amber,
I liked the ideas that you came up with for advertising the cafe. The only thing i would change would be the handing out of flyers. Since the Flyers technically cost money, we couldn’t do that angle of advertising, instead I would suggest creating online flyers and use portals such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to release the latest news and bar-gins from the cafe. This will prove to be a great means of getting the word out about your cafeteria. I liked your plan to have the event in November because liked previously mentioned by your post; its a perfect time of year to enjoy the nice and relaxing pleasures of a hot cup of coffee or any other of the consumables that your cafe has to offer. Lastly I would put responses to the questions that were asked at the bottom of the page to put the employee at rest on deciding what course of action to take to further explore alternative options in terms of advertising. All in all this was a fantastic read and your ideas that were generated will prove successful to any business that wants to expand their economic horizons.